I just purchased the Panasonic Lumix 12-35mm F2.8 and was shocked to see such bad purple fringing at the corners when used with the OMD-EM5. The two images below are at a focal length of 12mm and captured @ F2.8. IBIS was set to 1, and OIS was turned of on the lens.

The second image is a 100% crop of the top right hand corner which shows just how bad it is. I know about the problem with Panasonic's 7-14 and OMD combo, but it seems that there is a serious flaw with the 12-35 as well.

Not very happy either with the sharpness of this lens, even when stopped down a bit. It certainly isn't much better than my 14-45 Panasonic lens which leads me to believe that my copy of the 12-35 might be a bad copy.

I'll try a few more tests tomorrow with IBIS off and OIS on and I'll also give the lens a run out with my GX1 to see the difference.

DXO has the module for the combo and bet that would fix it auto magically-- when I use it for other lenses I often have to export a tiff into PS to finish up and it is a long work-flow.
There converter is usually good, IMO for my lenses and the raw level adjustable NR not bad either. Still, an expensive lens to show that.

Most of the images I have made with my 12-35 and E-M5 show very little fringing, but when I have seen a bit, it has cleaned up easily. What you show here is worse than what I have seen, but I would think that it still should clean up pretty well - does it not?? Sharpness looks like it is workable to me, 'tho hard to tell from the one sample. I generally use Unsharp Mask at about 200 to 300 / 0.3 settings with a second application at 20 to 40 / 0.3 if the size gets reduced later. Should print just fine at 20x30 or even larger.

When I tested and reviewed it, I noted occasional purple fringing, though it happens on a lot of lenses. I didn't have it crop up all that often. I also noted in my review that while quite sharp, the Panny 14-45 is essentially just as sharp, just two stops slower.

You buy the 12-35 because you need the build quality and f/2.8 aperture, not because it's sharper than the 14-45 (frankly, the 14-45 is really pretty crazy sharp for a kit zoom, and even holds up well next to many primes).

Do note that the other f/2.8 Panasonic zoom, the 35-100mm f/2.8, does not exhibit purple fringing the way the 12-35 does.

Is the Panny 14-45 sharper than the Oly 12-50? The weather sealing and the 43mm macro mode of the latter were quite nice when I got to use it for a couple days. For kicks compared a macro shot at the 43mm mode with the OM Zuiko 50mm f2 macro at about 1:4---very similiar renditions and resolution at least in the center. I have seen the mtf curves for the MZ 12-50 but not for the macro mode.

Yes...the Panny 14-45 is definitely sharper than the 12-50. The 12-50 is very nice because the macro mode is definitely decent (not going to compete with the Oly 60, but it certainly is good enough for casual macro work), and because it has a great range in a weathersealed body. It's built better than the 14-45, which feels very cheep, but the 14-45 is frankly the best kit zoom ever made, IMO. It compares favorably with high end zooms in pure optical quality, IMO, but it's slow and built cheaply. I don't tend to use standard zooms very often, so for me, the versatility of the 12-50 is more useful on the rare occasion I want to just use a single lens for wide variety, and I prefer the extra width as well, so I have the 12-50 now, but I've owned the 14-45 and it's excellent.

I agree that the Panasonic 14-45mm is a fantastic kit zoom - it compares to the Canon 24-105mm I used on a Canon 5D II (and I had a great copy of the Canon zoom) and the converted Contax 24-85mm that I used on the 5D II.

DXO's raw converter is the best for removing purple fringing. It also is amazing how much the "lens softness" feature improves definition, using what I believe is a combination of deconvolution and other sharpening routines. I usually have to dial it down because it's so sharp, but even dialed down quite a bit, it retrieves definition that I cannot obtain through Lightroom -- and I have quite a bit of expertise with using various sharpening routines.

DXO really works magic with the Panasonic 14-45mm zoom. I haven't tried the 12-35mm zoom so I can't compare.

The one area where DXO falls short of lightroom conversions is in recovering blown highlights. In extreme cases, Lightroom does better.

The new version of DXO handles highlights differently now with a slider that doesn't affect midtones. I think ACR engine is about the same as LR. I don't know if the new iteration of DXO is better with highlights or not, but ACR was clearly way better
than the past ones.

lsquare wrote:
In terms of sharpness throughout the focal lengths, how does the 14-45mm compare to the 12-35mm?

14-45mm is weak around 25mm, otherwise 14-18mm and 35-45mm are as sharp as possible. Aliasiang was way too easy with that lens. Downside is same as in this case. Nasty PF if you dont have Panasonic. Plus theres some left even after, so bit of PS work is mandatory.

I shot mostly at 18mm and 45mm, at 18mm that PF backed off a bit and at 45mm it was pretty much flawless. And distortion is also better at 18mm. Uncorrected distortion is about as horrible as 12-35mm (mainly wide-angle end).

Nigel Turner wrote:
I just purchased the Panasonic Lumix 12-35mm F2.8 and was shocked to see such bad purple fringing at the corners when used with the OMD-EM5. The two images below are at a focal length of 12mm and captured @ F2.8. IBIS was set to 1, and OIS was turned of on the lens.

The second image is a 100% crop of the top right hand corner which shows just how bad it is. I know about the problem with Panasonic's 7-14 and OMD combo, but it seems that there is a serious flaw with the 12-35 as well.

Not very happy either with the sharpness of this lens, even when stopped down a bit. It certainly isn't much better than my 14-45 Panasonic lens which leads me to believe that my copy of the 12-35 might be a bad copy.

I'll try a few more tests tomorrow with IBIS off and OIS on and I'll also give the lens a run out with my GX1 to see the difference.

Well, main problem is that you didnt make your homework. Problem here is that Olympus doesnt correct everything on Panasonic lens like Panasonic does (for unknown very stupid reasons). So you either need to use software to correct it or dont buy it.

I think that if one does have Panasonic camera, its quite ok. But for Olympus I wouldnt buy that.

Tho truth is I wouldnt buy it at all, cause it needs way too much software corrections for that money. Uncorrected, its pretty much piece of junk.. well at least its sharp mostly.